I have seen several of the new trailers and interviews regarding the new Ron Howard movie titled Rush that is coming out in September. It is about the 1976 Formula 1 season and looks like it will be very good. I also just finished reading James Garner’s autobiography The Garner Files, which is really good and a fun read. In The Garner Files the talks about the filming of the movie Grand Prix. These two things have gotten me thinking about my favorite racing movie of all time, Grand Prix.

Grand Prix came out in 1966 and featured the most realistic driving sequences that had ever been filmed up to that point. They used real Formula 1 drivers and filming techiniques that put the viewer in the middle of the action.

A few of the actors in Grand Prix have a military history connection. Toshiro Mifune had served in the Imperial Japanese Army Airforce during WWII. He was involved with aerial photography. James Garner served in the Korean War with the 5th RCT and received two purple hearts. Garner devotes a chapter of his book to his service in the Korean war. He saw some heavy combat action during his service in Korea and was wounded twice.

The Grand Prix poster pictured is an original movie poster from my collection from the year 1967. Grand Prix was originally shown in a format called Cinerama, which used three large wrap around screens to surround you in the action. It was also exhibited intially as a roadshow event which meant that only select theaters had it and you had to buy tickets, which were more expensive, for a specific seat. After it’s Cinerama roadshow run, it was then exhibited as a regular movie in regular theaters. This original poster is for that run of the movie in 1967.